For Summer Solstice

The people gather on the longest day of the year in the evening. They meet by candlelight, natural light, or another bright and colorful setting indoors or around a festive bonfire outside. The Invocation may also be used as the Benediction.

INVOCATION

In the beginning,

there was only darkness and void.

But was it absent? Could it be

when a breath and a Word were enough

to call light into being,

to dance with the darkness,

to harmonize as days and nights

that stretch and contract in cadence

with a planet tipping and tilting so slightly,

just enough to cause seasons

and salutations like this one?

In the beginning,

there were rumors

of separation and singularity,

and then with a breath and a Word

there were layers of love, enough

to grow gardens and fill oceans

and scatter seed with the good news

that everything is old, like atoms bursting

and everything is brand new,

becoming even still, even now.

PRAYER

Spirit of Wind and Fire and Breath,

it is the season of Pentecost

and so we remember the power and mystery

of being gathered together in one place.

You have been known to breeze in,

to stir things up and burn things down.

You have been known to help people

hear one another in their mother tongue,

to help us listen longer, to offer

an exchange of visions and dreams,

our little ones for your big ones.

We wouldn’t put it past you, God.

The world needs your light and heat and so do we.

So take what we have to offer tonight

and use it as breath and wind and fire,

for the sake of what you are up to

in this moment and the next. Amen.

REFLECTION & ACTION

This is an opportunity to learn or do something together. The people might bring songs or poems about light, make flower crowns, or build the bonfire together. Consider a reading about the indigineous identity of the land and marvel at all the seasons this earth has known. Choose a simple spiritual practice to introduce and provide the tools for people to modify it to their faith and life. (Example: The Daily Examen.)

INTECESSIONS

We pray for God’s people and the fullness of creation.

For the quiet; shine on us, O God.

For the hopeful; shine on us, O God.

For the restless; shine on us, O God.

For the lonely; shine on us, O God.

For the busy; shine on us, O God.

For the broken; shine on us, O God.

For the plucky; shine on us, O God.

For the painful; shine on us, O God.

For the dying; shine on us, O God.

For the rising; shine on us, O God.

For the love; shine on us, O God.

Give us back to one another and the fullness of your image

that lives in everyone and everything. Amen.